What This Page is About

The idea behind this page is to create a place where communication between various existing community channels of Ubuntu can take place.

Rationale

Within the Ubuntu community there exist a variety of help and communication channels. These include, for example

• The mailing lists
• IRC channels on irc.freenode.net
• The forums

At times, partly because of perceptions, and partly because of different affiliations of members and users, those on one or other of these channels feel, rightly or wrongly, that their concerns are not being heard, or that people using one of the other channels are ignoring or failing to understand their efforts.

This page is intended as a place where concerns can be aired and possible solutions to communication issues might be resolved in the Free and Open Source manner. That is, a place to report and fix communication bugs.

Please feel free to contribute, in order to help Ubuntu improve its community communication.

Issues, Comments, Solutions

Edit the page and add your concerns, comments or answers here

• Some discussion is taking place on the forums at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=255516 , but please add ideas and comments on this wiki page to broaden the accessibility and scope of the discussion.

• And I'll think I start: Gentoo has a system whereby the forum users appoint a user representative to review popular topics and report to the developers, rather like a Member of Parliament in Britain (or in any democratic system). This would be a good starting point for "Bridging Ubuntu". ~ Toby Smithe

• This seems to be the same as the proposals in the ForumIntegration (draft) specification.

• how about more support for autopackage (http://autopackage.org/)? have the .package files marked as executables by default and have autopackage be installed whith the system just like gedit or firefox or the gimp. also, maybe compile all default applucations (Firefox, Revolution, openoffice, etc) as .package files. this would help with compatibility beween distro's, and since Ubuntu is the most popular one, I think Ubuntu should do it. if there is a better cross-distro installer thing, then Ubuntu should help it grow too. ~ Yman

• UbuntuDemon : ForumIntegration is page similar to this one. Two blog entries by me about this subject (also on planet.ubuntu.com) : http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2006/09/12/about-forum-integration http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2006/09/13/bridging-ubuntu

• UbuntuDemon : In my humble opinion it's very important to get some forum staff to UDS Mountain View.

Ubuntu Forum Ambassadors

A discussion is underway at Ubuntu Forums that proposes the creation of "Ambassadors" from the forum. The main stated reason for this is that there is an excess of ideas that users are churning out over there; but they feel that they're not looked at enough, and not considered important. Basically, the proposed process is as such:

• Threads regarding different areas of development will be started in the forum. Possible topics for threads might include Office Apps, Eyecandy, Desktop Configurability, and most likely a "Free Thought" thread. Users will post to these threads with any ideas they may have for the advancement of this OS.
• Selected "Ambassadors" will comb through this various threads, to basically seperate the gold from the rubble. The best and most possible ideas will be selected from each thread.
• These "best" ideas will then be re-presented back to the forum users in the form of polls that will be open long enough for any user who wants to vote to be able to.
• The winners of the polls from each of the sections will be presented to the developers by the Ambassadors, who at this point will be the communication link between the developers and the community at large. The Ambassadors will work with the developers closely to try and make these proposed projects a reality.

This is basically the gist of the Ambassador proposal. Feel free to post any comments or concerns, or even suggestions